Charlie was born in San Jose, California and is a 3rd generation Californian, with his great grandfather arriving there in the 1860's from Canada. Charlie began performing music in public by singing in church at the age of 3.
Though he played piano and then the trumpet during his youth, his musical talent didn't take hold of him until he was in high school. He was the lead singer in a rock band but didn't play any instrument in the band. During his freshman year in college he joined another band where he again was the lead singer. He also played blues harmonica and a little rhythm guitar and bass.
At the ripe age of twenty Charlie decided to pursue music more seriously. He studied Bach chorales by day at Stanford and borrowed a friend's Martin guitar at night. He also began concentrated piano study with the great granddaughter of Felix Mendelssohn, who herself had graduated in the 30's from the Franz Liszt Royal Hungarian School of Music as the best young talent in the country. Later, her playing was compared to the great Arthur Rubinstein.
Charlie pursued the piano until problems with his right hand forced him to give up the instrument. At that point he was playing a lot of ragtime and was beginning to move toward jazz.
All during the piano years, Charlie was playing the acoustic steel-string guitar as his other musical pursuit. He loved the fingerstyle guitar players and learned lots of music by Mississippi John Hurt, John Fahey, and Doc Watson. Charlie began playing guitar gigs at the now defunct New Varsity Restaurant and Theater in Palo Alto, California. This venue was the early stomping grounds for some other great talent, such as Michael Hedges and Tuck and Patti.
Charlie hit the road with his guitar and spent two years busking (being a street musician) in Europe.
Charlie has performed at concerts and festivals in the U.S. and Europe. He has shared the billing with performers such as Alice Stuart, Ray Bonneville, Chris Proctor, and Radim Zenkl.
His music has been used on the weekly San Francisco Bay Area television program, "Backroads". One of Charlie's compositions was chosen by the NPR program, "A Prairie Home Companion", as a musical selection on their web site.